


Close Your Pretty Eyes

by DeviyudeThoolika



Category: Chinese Actor RPF, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, BJYX | Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan is Real, M/M, Mutual Pining, Xiao Zhan and gang are seniors in high school, over some five years, the slowest burn, this follows them from high school to college, when they first meet freshman Yibo who is a trasplant from Korea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25776163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeviyudeThoolika/pseuds/DeviyudeThoolika
Summary: Wang Yibo/Xiao Zhan and gang from high school to college.  This is AU high school/college; despite names and places, this bears no resemblance to actual high-schools/colleges in Chongquin.Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan meet as freshman and senior in high school, respectively.  They both date different people through high school and college, all the while things simmer below the surface.  Spans around 5 years of their life.
Relationships: Liu Haikuan/Wang Yi Bo, Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan, Xiao Zhan/wang yizhou
Comments: 84
Kudos: 398
Collections: BJYX Prompt Fest 2020





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [gdgdbaby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gdgdbaby/pseuds/gdgdbaby) in the [bjyx_fest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjyx_fest) collection. 



> Title from the Butterfly’s Repose by Zabawa.
> 
> Dear Reader, 
> 
> Before you begin, some things that you may wish to know. Even though Xiao Zhan/Wang Yibo is endgame here, they do date other people during parts of the story (it spans about 5 years). Also, they are all in high school at the beginning of the series when they are dating and there are some age parameters that some may not like regarding that. Thus, if you have any squeamishness regarding reading about XZ/WYB with anyone other than each other, this is probably not the story for you. Additionally, they are sexually active teenagers, if that bothers you, this is not the story for you. I am writing all these here than the tags, so that it's clear and not lost in just a collection of tags. Even though this is not a coming of age story per se, there are characters experiences that have such themes of life changes, so if any of the above is a no-no in your preference in rpf, I would advise you to use your discretion in whether or not this is appropriate reading for you. 
> 
> Okay, whew, now that I've convinced many of you not to read it, those who are still thinking of giving it a chance... one more caution, my rpf-s tend to have high angst factor (I write generally about things that I like to read about and angst is high up there, but I also appreciate that some may have no stomach for it), so if that's not your thing, you may wish to exit here as well.
> 
> To the rest of you lovely folks, cheers.
> 
> Devi

Close Your Pretty Eyes

Wang Yizhou grabs Xiao Zhan’s arm to pull him to the crowd that has gathered by the window. It makes it much easier to get to the front of the crowd because when Wang Yizhou walks through, the crowd parts on its own like the Red Sea for Moses. Not quite because they are afraid of Yizhou or anything, but mostly because Yizhou is a bit larger than life. 

“What is it?” he asks. The new wave of freshmen were arriving at the Chongqing Arts School, this being the day those who were boarding were checking in. Most of the seniors and juniors had already arrived three days ago. He and Yizhou had arrived day before yesterday, as had his roommate Haikuan and Yizhou’s roommate Ji Li. Their rooms were right across from each other in the senior wing. 

He can see both Haikuan and Ji Li at the front of the crowd. 

“Seriously, all this to see a bunch of freshmen? What’s the big deal?” he asks, shaking his head.

“The White Peony is in this batch, haven’t you heard?” Ji Li asks. He looks at Haikuan and sees him shake his head with a smile, although his eyes are trained out the window just like the rest of them. 

“Who’s the White Peony?” he asks.

“Some idol-in-training who has been in Korea for the past two years. I guess his agency decided to bring him back to China and enroll him in our little school.”

Their “little” arts high school is hardly little, especially given that its affiliated and renowned arts college and its enormous campus is right next door, but Chongqing is still no Beijing or Seoul. 

“We’ve had our fair share of famous people. A minor idol-in-training from Korea hardly merits all this hoopla.” He reminds them.

“He is not called the White Peony for nothing.” Ji Li says, tapping the ever-present fan in his hands against his chin. Why he carried it, no one knew, but no one ever saw him without it and it is such a permanent fixture in his hands that no one even thinks to question its presence. But then again, he is hardly the only one with peculiar forms of individual expression in their school. 

“I really don’t think anyone is going to rival Xiao Zhan in the looks department. Honestly.” Yizhou says with his characteristic devotion that brings a flush to Xiao Zhan’s cheeks, although given that this sort of effusion is hardly new from Yizhou, one would think he would be used to it by now.

After a few minutes of looking outside where he could see nothing spectacular among the throng of freshmen coming in, he loses interest. Just as he is about to turn away though, he pauses. He catches a brief flash of blond just behind two students who are laughing and then they move out of the way…

“That would be the White Peony.” Ji Li says while he hears several gasps from their sides. 

There is silence for a long moment as all of them stare, none of them speaking, and then Yizhou clears his throat, breaking the spell.

“He’s sexy.” Haikuan says, the previous indulgent smile at Ji Li’s frequent tendency to exaggerate the gossipy merit of any story now all but gone. He has never heard Haikuan describe anyone as sexy. 

“I told you.” Ji Li’s fan is flashing back and forth rapidly like the wings of a hummingbird. 

“He is still no match for Xiao Zhan.” Yizhou says now, although when Xiao Zhan looks over at him, he can see that even Yizhou, the most ardent and committed admirer that Xiao Zhan has ever had in his entire life, is mesmerized by the sight of the Korean idol.

“Does he have an actual name or should we all just take to referring to him as the White Peony?” Yizhou asks, directing the question to Ji Li.

“Wang Yibo.” Ji Li says, his fan speeding up even more.

xxxxxxx

“Fuck, this place is so cute.” Wenhan says and Yibo looks over. It’s not bad. He had thought it would be a lot more dated that it actually is. “I like it.” Yixuan agrees. 

Well, if they both like it, Yibo is willing to give it a try. It’s not like he has a choice anyways. It’s the agency’s decision to bring the three of them back from Korea. He misses Seungyoun and Sungjoo like crazy. He misses his old school. He misses the five of them together all the time. Wenhan is a sophomore and Yixuan is a junior and while they are allowed to room together, as a freshman, Yibo is in the freshmen wing. He is stuck with someone named Yu Bin. 

Yixuan and Wenhan have to go to their dorms now to set up their rooms; even though they are upperclassmen, they have also only arrived today like him. 

Yixuan hugs him as if he knows he needs it while Wenhan squeezes his hand and winks. “Let me know if your roommate hits on you.”

“Oh, shut up!” he returns, although he is glad for their concern. He hasn’t lived with anyone other than them and the two brothers that he had left behind in Korea for the past two years and he is not looking forward to rooming with anyone new.

“Should we meet at the courtyard at seven to walk to the bonfire together?” Yixuan asks and Wenhan nods. Yibo wants to sit this one out. The bonfire is some first weekend dormitory get-together that is a tradition for the school, although definitely not organized by the school itself, as it is held at the Jianshe Wharf, a beach that has gained some fame, or notoriety depending on who you talked to, for its clothing-optional status. He has nothing against nudity, and while he doesn’t think everyone going to the bonfire is going to strip and walk around naked, he wants to be in his room by himself for a while, alone. And he imagines Yu Bin is going to the bonfire, really, everyone is, which allows him at least a few hours to himself. 

“I’m going to sit this one out.” He says to Yixuan, but sees Wenhan shake his head almost immediately.

“You’re definitely coming.”

He sighs. When Wenhan took that tone, it’s way easier to agree than to put up a fight.

“Fine” he says, eyebrows scrunching up unconsciously, although Yixuan catches it and smooths it out saying, “Don’t pout like this at your roommate, okay? He’ll definitely jump you while you sleep.”

xxxxxx

When they arrive at the beach, the fire is already going and people are sitting around, several of them with guitars. They walk around on the beach for a bit, enjoying the breeze, before they join the group. By then, there is sizable number of them and some are singing and some are talking. Yu Bin’s friend from home, Wang Zhuocheng, is there and they join his group, which has several girls who are upperclassmen. He doesn’t catch all of their names, except one, Xuan Lu, but they all seem sweet. 

Tonight is supposed to be just a meet and greet and reacquaint sort of thing, but he knows at some point, the freshmen will go through a bit of hazing. Yu Bin had told him of this in excitement, as if this was something to look forward to, although in the next breath he had added, “You should probably watch out.”

“Why?” he had asked. 

“They like to pick on cute boys.”

 _Cute_? Tf.

“I’m not cute.” He had replied.

That had made Yu Bin’s eyebrow go up. “Okay… Pretty?” he asked.

“Good looking.” He corrected.

Yu Bin had smiled, although it had seemed like he was laughing at a private joke. 

He thought he heard Yu Bin mutter, “Oh, they’ll definitely get you alright” but he wasn’t sure.

He leans over to ask Yixuan now, about the hazing, although the girl next to Xuan Lu - he thought her name was something like MianMian - hears his question and answers, “They won’t really pick on the freshmen the day of the bonfire, but yea, there’s probably going to be a little ribbing and teasing. Just play along.”

“Who’s they?” he asks. 

“The seniors.” MianMian answers, pointing to a cluster of students sitting diagonally across from them on the other side of the fire. It’s a group of eight of ten guys, although there are a few that appear to be holding court in the center. He glances over them fleetingly, not wishing to study them in any particular length right now and draw their attention, but then notices that one of them, a rather tall muscular guy is staring right at him. It’s not the most friendly stare and he stares back, instinctively. He is not one to invite trouble, but he is also not one to back down if trouble intended on visiting him directly. 

Then someone pats the guy’s shoulder and the muscle turns and he sees the face behind. For a moment, he still has the rude stare on his face that he had been aiming at the beefy guy, it arrested in place as something inside him freezes at this new face. With the loveliest eyes he had ever seen in existence. He must still be staring, maybe rudely too, because those lovely eyes narrow now, and he wonders if that expression is merely a mirror of his own. Before he has a chance to correct it, the beefy guy is looking back in his direction once again and he feels MianMian pull on his sleeve. 

He looks over and she whispers, “You’re staring.”

He lowers his eyes to erase whatever white noise is in his head, although he can still see those eyes in his mind’s eye, wide and curved up at the end like a fish’s tail. 

“What did you do to piss off Yizhou?” MianMian asks.

“Who’s Yizhou?” he asks, looking back up. 

“That tall chunk of ham, standing guard next to the Pearl of Chongquin. 

He looks up. “The Pearl?” he asks.

“Xiao Zhan. The pretty one right next to Yizhou.” She murmurs. 

_Xiao Zhan…_

“Are they… together?” he asks, not really knowing that that’s what he’s going to ask until the words are out of his mouth.

“Everyone thinks so. Those four are always together. Xiao Zhan, Yizhou, Haikuan, and Ji Li. Probably the most popular seniors. Xiao Zhan and Haikuan are sweethearts. Ji Li is… hmm… shall we say a purveyor of information, for all of campus really. And Yizhou… Yizhou is possessive of Xiao Zhan, just a tad bit.”

_Who wouldn’t be…_

He looks back briefly, but their attention has already moved on and he is glad that they’ve forgotten him.

xxxxx

“What a conceited little shit!” Yizhou says, gaining Ji Li’s attention, who now looks surreptitiously across the fire into the other group sitting together. 

Xiao Zhan would have to agree with that estimation. He has never seen a freshman stare so rudely at any senior, and that too on the first day. 

“Mr. White Peony from Korea seems to have a little stick up his skinny idol ass. I’m sure we can pull it out for him.” Yizhou says, making Ji Li laugh.

“Hey…” Haikuan admonishes in that deep voice of his, although it makes Xiao Zhan cut in now, uncharacteristically enough. “He’s right. The boy is definitely rude.” 

“Likely thinks he’s too good for an arts school in the sticks.” Yizhou pipes in again. 

“Go easy on him either way.” Haikuan warns.

He doesn’t think much of it until later when several of the guys in his group, along with Ji Li and Yizhou have organized some sort of game. On the surface it seems innocent enough, although after a few turns, he starts to notice that they’re not necessarily picking people at random to participate in the games, but choosing mainly freshmen and the other upperclassmen who are new to the school. 

But still, the games are silly and fun, drawing mainly laughs and only occasional twinges of embarrassment on the part of the new folks who are put on the spot.

It continues that way until Yizhou picks on the White Peony and the two upperclassmen with him. Xiao Zhan sits back and watches with only part interest as the boy gets out of his seat along with the two with him. All three are good-looking, although the White Peony is clearly a superior breed of good-looking, not even just compared to the other two, but just in general to mankind. Which is evident from the whoops of delight that Xiao Zhan can hear from here and there next to him when the White Peony actually takes his place next to the other two. 

The junior in the group, they learn his name is Yixuan, turns out to be quite friendly and explains when Ji Li asks that yes, they used to be idol trainees under YueHua in Korea, had lived there for two years before returning recently. They are still a band, although given that two of their members are still in Korea, they are not active at the moment. No, they don’t know what will happen in the future, whether the band will debut or disband. It’s all offered rather good-naturedly that it’s impossible not to like him. He was the lead rapper of the group, evidently, and quite good with his voice switching to a deep bass when he provides a sample of something he has done before.

The sophomore in the group, Li Wenhan is a bit more reserved, certainly blessed in the looks department, but ultimately not afraid to find the humor in things, as he unabashedly mimes out what breakdancing will look like if one attempted it underwater, because it turns out Wenhan had aspirations to become an Olympic swimmer once upon a time.

That left the White Peony. “Wang Yibo” Xiao Zhan hears him say now, answering Ji Li’s question about his name.

“So your geges seem pretty talented. Are you the visual of the group?” Yizhou asks.

Yibo’s eyes narrow at the insinuation, although a moment later, he refuses to provide the satisfaction of a witty comeback and simply shrugs.

“We hear that you are called the White Peony.” Ji Li says.

“Really? I hadn’t.” Yibo answers. There are a few laughs here and there. Ji Li seems taken aback.

Yizhou looks pissed off, but before he can say anything to make a mess of it, Ji Li intervenes once more and asks, “Being the visual is not one of your talents then?”

“Beauty is hardly a talent.” Yibo shrugs.

Xiao Zhan looks over at Haikuan and Haikuan looks back, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

He tilts his head, raising an eyebrow.

“What? He’s funny.” Haikuan murmurs.

“He’s full of himself is what he is.” He whispers back.

Yizhou must have heard that because now he says, turning this way, “What do you think Xiao Zhan? As the visual of our entire school, do you agree with Yibo’s assessment?”

Yibo’s eyes flicker with interest now, turning to where he is sitting. 

He looks at Yibo, holding that gaze, and he wonders if that is a challenge he sees in the boy’s eyes.

“Anything can be a talent if you know how to use it well.” He says, sitting back against Haikuan who is now tugging absently on a guitar someone has passed to him.

“Interesting… interesting…” Ji Li says, tapping the fan against his hand; it’s the kind of tapping that means…

“Uh oh.” Haikuan whispers in his ear just before Ji Li says, “Why don’t you see if you can make this beauty into a talent, Xiao Zhan.”

“Why bring Xiao Zhan into it?” Yizhou asks immediately even as Xiao Zhan sighs. 

Haikuan sighs behind him.

“How this boy’s head works is indeed a mystery.” Haikuan whispers in his ear, although he can hear the affection in it. There is nothing that Ji Li could do that wouldn’t be amusing to Haikuan.

“Why?” Ji Li looks to Yizhou, snapping his fan shut. “You’re not up for the task, Xiao Zhan?” 

He’s definitely put his foot in it now. What the hell did that even mean, making a beauty into a talent. Too late to back out now though. Ji Li meant to bring the gorgeous freshman down a peg or two, hell maybe a few hundred because one or two would still have him floating above the rest of them mortals… but… but, yes, Ji Li’s challenge. That’s what it was essentially. A challenge. Issued in public. From a senior to a freshman. There was no way to back out of it gracefully, especially given that it was of his own making. 

He takes a moment to lean completely back against Haikuan, his posture purposely indolent, as he looks Wang Yibo up and down. He perusal is all that is objective, an artist taking account of how to present its subject. 

The White Peony is not a perfect being by any means. There is no beauty in perfection. And this is all beauty. From the crinkle between those eyebrows, the slight push of his lower lip, both creating a resentful pout that Wang Yibo did not even seem to be aware of, the overly slender frame with the slight hunch at the very top, just below the shoulders, as if he had gained a few inches overnight and did not quite know what to do with it yet, the hands and fingers that were enormous by any standard, much less in proportion to his thin frame, all of it fitting together somehow like it belonged in just this way. He glanced back up to the face, now seeing that the pout was more prominent, making him look like a belligerent toddler. 

Haikuan gives him a nudge from the back and he sighs again before getting up. 

As he approaches, Ji Li ushers the other boys to sit back down and it’s just Wang Yibo standing up. He holds the boy’s gaze, sees the amber glow of the fire reflected there. He walks closer, holding that gaze, watching the reflection of the glow become clearer with each step. The wrinkle between Yibo’s eyebrows has smoothed out and those lips have parted just the tiniest bit. 

He walks past Yibo and catches his minute movement of surprise, although the kid is evidently too well trained to show it. Yibo stands still while he walks over to their little group and grabs Meng Ziyi’s purse where it is resting by her leg.

“Oh, yes, go ahead. No need to ask permission.” She says sarcastically and he grins his best grin and she rolls her eyes murmuring, “When has that worked on me?” although she allows him to take it nonetheless. 

He opens it and finds what he is looking for right away. She only has a few items in the bag, but she never goes anywhere without her trusty Mac Russian Red; this must be the eighth or tenth tube since her mother started letting her wear lipstick as a freshman. There is a travel tissue pack in the purse as well as he grabs a tissue from it before returning the purse to her. He opens the bullet and wipes the tip as he walks back over to Wang Yibo. Who is looking at him warily now that he sees the tube of lipstick. 

“Do you have any objection to me touching you?” he asks.

For a moment, Yibo just stares at the lipstick tube and then murmurs, “I’m not wearing lipstick.” 

“Don’t worry. I’m not putting it on your lips.”

Yibo raises his eyes up from the lipstick finally. 

Xiao Zhan brings his index finger to tilt Yibo’s chin up. And then it’s there, up close and personal. The most interesting Adam’s apple he has ever seen in his life. It’s almost too sharp to draw over, so he draws what he wants around it, only afterwards coloring it in, which is made difficult by how often Yibo swallows through the whole process. So much so that without pausing in the middle, he whispers, “Are you thirsty or something?”

Which makes the wrinkle between Yibo’s eyebrows reappear. “You try letting someone draw over your Adam’s apple with a stupid lipstick.” He says irately.

“Why are you letting me anyway?” Xiao Zhan asks even as he proceeds to finish up his work.

“You mean, I can say no to public hazing by seniors?” That sentence is almost a snort.

“You can try. Yizhou will likely make your life quite difficult though.” He answers, checking his work before moving to complete the rest of it.

“Why? Is he your puppet?” Yibo asks.

Xiao Zhan pulls back at that, taken aback at the bite in that tone, and then murmurs, “I have little interest in you. Why would I put him up to anything even if I were capable of doing so?” 

Yibo is gazing back now, lips curling in… something…

“Let’s see now how Xiao Zhan has produced talent in this beauty.” Ji Li is upon them the next moment and Xiao Zhan turns away from Yibo, moving back so Ji Li can have a look.

“Well well well…. If that’s not an apple drawn over Wang Yibo’s Adam’s Apple.” Ji Li squints his eyes a bit to read what is written next to it, but it’s going to be impossible to read because it’s written with the blunt tip of a lipstick bullet so Xiao Zhan reads it out loud instead, “The Forbidden Fruit in Russian Red. Get yours at M.A.C.”

“Oh hey…” Ji Li says, smiling, looking at Xiao Zhan proudly. “You can sell anything, can’t you?” 

“I’m sure Russian Red is selling aplenty without my help. Meng Ziyi buys half of it herself.” He says with a grin, lifting up the bullet in his hands now and calling out to its owner, “Don’t worry. I’ll replace this bullet.”

“You better.” Meng Ziyi calls back.

“Well, ladies and gentleman, that’s how you make beauty into talent.”

Yibo snorts again, making it quite obvious he is unimpressed.

“Oh, you don’t think so?” Ji Li turns to him to ask.

Yibo merely rolls his eyes. 

Ji Li looks back at the crowd and asks, “How many of you are going to buy a little Russian Red now that you know it will forever make you think of the White Peony…”

“Wang Yibo.” Yibo interrupts.

“Yes, White Peony Wang Yibo’s” Ji Li adds without a pause. “…Adam’s Apple.”

A surprising number of hands go up, both male and female.

Xiao Zhan fights a grin at the shadow of frustration that passes over Wang Yibo’s face and instead says, “You seem to be quite popular, White Peony.”

“Wang Yibo” Yibo grits out now, most of the cool that he had held onto until then flying away like a kite with its line cut.

“Wang Yibo.” He agrees, walking away, pocketing Meng Ziyi’s Russian Red. 

Xxxx

Several things happen in short order the days after. Someone had taped the whole bonefire challenge between the senior and the freshman, uploading the video in surprisingly good fancam quality to the gram, the entire exercise, all 2 minutes and 23 seconds of it, and then it’s trending locally and gains momentum like a surprising meme, the comments saying things like, “Russian Red making a come-back on the hottest neck on the planet.” “How are these boys so cute?” “I think I got pregnant from all their eye-fucking” “Damn, to be that fire!” And several other choice ones that are in abbreviations and emojis that speak of a great deal of time and talent and imagination.

It travels all the way from Chongqing until Duo Hua calls him from Beijing, asking him if he wants to do a quick commercial for M.A.C. At this point, he feels that Russian Red owes him royalties, so of course he agrees. And the day the print ad comes out in some magazine that Yixuan brings him a copy of, he is ecstatic if only to show it to a certain senior.

He rips out the ad and sticks it in his chemistry text book, grabbing an apple from Wenhan’s breakfast tray and sticking it in his mouth before running to the library where he knows Xiao Zhan will be with Haikuan, Ji Li, and Yizhuan, preparing for the midterms. He has seen them many times since the bonfire night, has been hazed pretty fucking bad by Yizhuan, in fact, but true to his word, Xiao Zhan hasn’t shown much interest in him. It had the interesting side effect of eventually making Yizhuan lose interest in him as well, as if anything Xiao Zhan wasn’t interested in wasn’t worth his time and effort either. 

He has gotten used to the Chongqing Arts School, now that close to an entire semester is over. Despite his run-in with the seniors so early in his tenure here, or maybe because of it, he has gotten rather popular. Which unfortunately has the side-effect of bringing people to him all the time. That is uncomfortable. But he has become pretty close with his roommate Yu Bin as well as Zhuocheng. Through the latter, he regularly runs into Xuan Lu, MianMian and Meng Ziyi. Meng Ziyi turns out to be Xiao Zhan’s oldest friend; they evidently grew up together in Chongqing and, even though, their friend groups at the school are not always together, he ends up running into Xiao Zhan more than most seniors simply because of Meng Ziyi. It’s not nearly as often as he would like, but hey, he’ll take what he can get.

He is on the fourth floor of the campus library now, a haven mostly for seniors, especially during midterms as the floor is lined on almost all sides with closet-sized quiet study rooms. He sees Haikuan and Ji Li in one corner, Ji Li trying to grab the mechanical pencil in Haikuan’s hands, to no avail. He sees one other bag next to theirs, which he recognizes as Yizhou’s, although Yizhou is nowhere to be found. There is no trace of Xiao Zhan, however. He pulls on the strap of his bookbag and tries to swallow his disappointment, but the last bite of the apple is conveniently stuck in his throat, letting hope live for a brief moment. He walks through the periphery of the floor, trying to look for the occupied private rooms. They all seem empty – it is after all, barely 8:30 in the morning – but when he reaches the corner quiet room well hidden from the main seating area of the floor by many rows of bookshelves, he hears murmurs. He follows it and knows that one of them is Yizhou. Which by extension of Yizhou’s habits should make the other Xiao Zhan.

He pulls out his chemistry book from his bookbag and pulls out the print ad and looks at it for a moment. His face is mostly in the shadows, with one eye and his side profile taking up the only lighted portions of the page. His eyes are smoked out and there is a hint of Russian Red on his lips, mainly on the inner part. They had captured him with his lips parted just so and he thinks the whole thing looks… sensual…

He wonders if Xiao Zhan would think so too…

The sound of a torn moan startles him. The door to the study room is not fully closed and he can see inside through the slight crack - he can see Yizhuan’s profile, his face buried in Xiao Zhan’s neck. 

He hears a whispered, _Not here, Not now_ , although in contradiction to those words, he sees Xiao Zhan’s arms go around Yizhou’s neck to bring him closer. For a moment, he is so disconcerted that he is frozen in place. Then Yizhou jerks Xiao Zhan’s hips up to his, grinding them together and Yibo finally finds the ability to move his limbs, turning on his heel and hurrying back out of the bookshelves. It’s only way later, when MianMian asks him to see the ad that he realizes that it’s no longer in his Chemistry textbook. 

Xxxxxx

Midterms are over in a flash and he is home in Luoyang for several weeks before coming back to campus. When he does, the blond hair is gone and, in its place, now is brown with just a hint of teal blue at the edges. The length is shorter too. He joins the street dancing club on campus, knowing that it has a much bigger branch at the college campus next-door. At least 30% of the high school graduates of Chongqing Arts School ended up going to the BA and MFA programs of their college program, so it’s not unusual to see many of the more prominent clubs at the high school level have more robust organizations on the college campus. Yu Bin joins the street dancing club with him and MianMian and Xuan Lu are appreciative of his new hair. “Makes you look a bit more grownup, a bit more like a boy if you know what I mean.” Xuan Lu says. He hopes that’s good because he thinks he is in the market to start dating. “But you’re just 15.” Yixuan says. Sungjoo agrees with that sentiment over a video-call. Wenhan is neutral while Seungyoun is all that would be the perfect wingman. He misses him. “Boys or girls?” Seungyoun asks later over the phone when it’s just the two of them. 

“You know?” he asks. 

“I wasn’t sure to tell you the truth.” Seungyoun admits.

“What about you?” he asks back.

“I think girls, although I think I’ve forgotten how to be around them, Yibo. I’m always preening, it’s become so second nature from everything in the past few years, but it always makes them think I’m gay.”

“Is there anyone in particular that you like?” he asks.

Seungyoun pauses, but then shakes his head.

So, that’s a yes. But not ready to talk about it. Yibo understands.

“You?” Seungyoun asks.

Pretty doe eyes and the long curve of a beautiful neck come unbidden to his mind, a needy voice whispering _Not Here… Not Now_ and he fidgets in his chair as his jeans feel tighter.

“Not really.” He answers.

xxxxx


	2. Part 2

“So did you hear that Haikuan has a date?” Ji Li comes into their room and plops down on Haikuan’s bed, uncaring that he is crowding into Haikun who has his head buried in some tome of fiction that is over 700 pages long.

“Oh yea? With whom?” he asks absently, concentrating on blurring the edges of the shadow that he is making now, abandoning his paintbrush to use just his finger for a moment. Once he blurs it enough, he can create more dimension by going back in with the brush.

“Oh, you know, the freshman hottie.” 

His finger stills momentarily although his mouth knows enough to not advertise such tells to the world, especially to his closest friends.

“Who?” he asks, making his finger move again on the canvas.

“The White Peony himself.”

He looks at the blue paint on his finger and knows that he has made a mistake. The area that he messed with has flattened out entirely, any hint of three dimensions now collapsed into two.

“Really?” he asks neutrally, rubbing his finger against his apron. It really needed washing, he thinks, turning around to face Haikuan, whose face is still hidden behind the book.

“It’s just a date.” Haikuan says after a moment, putting the book down.

“Just a date? You sucked face with him so much yesterday that I thought you were going to fuck him right there.” Ji Li counters.

Xiao Zhan turns back around to face the easel, picking the paintbrush back up.

“Where? At Splash?” he asks. He had sat that one out. He has been working on this art project for a solid week and needs it finished by tomorrow if it’s to be ready by Monday. 

“Yea.” Ji Li says. “That boy is… _fuck_ … can’t blame this one over here. If he was even remotely interested in me, I would gladly sign over my life to be his sex slave.” Ji Li smacks Haikuan’s thigh with his closed fan, grinding his teeth for emphasis. “Lucky bastard.”

And just like that, his cursed imagination supplies an HD video of Haikuan’s lips trailing over that slender neck that he had once painted on with lipstick, its red softening and drawing out moisture from the heat of the skin and the fire burning beside them.

His eyes blur for a moment and when he shakes his head to clear the haze, he realizes that he had gone back in with wrong shade of blue.

“Fuck.” He mutters, putting the paintbrush down. 

When he turns back, Haikuan is looking at him. “I think I fucked this up. Let’s take a break. You guys want to go over to Bowen’s?”

And that’s how they end up at Li Bowen’s apartment. He is a sophomore in college and rooms with his boyfriend of eternity, Song Jiyang. Their fridge is always stocked with beer and occasionally, a corner shelf holds liquor of the harder variety. Xiao Zhan is strictly a social drinker – of quite recent times – and knows his limit well, but tonight he indulges more than he should. When they get back to the dorms, Haikuan goes to sleep in Ji Li’s room so that Yizhou can sleep here. As Yizhou fucks into him slowly, the alcohol still buzzing pleasantly in his head, he sinks down into the bed, wanting only this loosening of nerves and muscles. This sex is good. Very good, in fact. Yizhou is a generous lover, always making sure he came before he took his own pleasure. And if occasionally, the arch of another neck, the pout of full lips, and the soft uncertain line between the eyebrows wades through his consciousness, he squeezes his eyes shut and focuses on how good this feels. This is as good as pleasure gets. 

xxxxx

“It’s Art for Kids. The whole campus will be there. What’s wrong if he comes with us?” Haikuan asks.

“I didn’t say he couldn’t come.” Xiao Zhan answers, turning back to his sketch pad, trying to ignore Yizhou absently rubbing his fingers along his thigh. Ordinarily he wouldn’t mind, but today he has to focus hard to make sure he didn’t do something assholish, like move the hand away. Yizhou is sensitive about things like this and Xiao Zhan feels like he always has to make sure that he didn’t even subconsciously do something to make Yizhou feel rejected. It’s hard to do. As confident as Yizhou is in most other areas of life, he seemed to always read between the lines in the worst ways when it came to things that Xiao Zhan did, or rather, what he didn’t do.

And so he lets Yizhou keep up the absent rubbing even though it’s so irritating that he has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep still.

“Yea, but your expression says otherwise. What is your issue with him?” Haikuan asks.

Xiao Zhan looks up at Haikuan’s tone. 

He was really starting to dislike Wang Yibo. Haikuan is head over heels infatuated with the kid and insists on bringing him everywhere. He didn’t know when their group of friends had started inviting people they were fucking to random hangouts and events.

“I have no issue with him. Really. I don’t even know him that well. It’s just that I haven’t really seen you without him in a long time.”

“That’s unfair. You’re always with Yizhou.” 

“That’s different.” He answers, his eyes wide.

“Yea, asshole. I am actually your friend. Not just someone you’re fucking.” Yizhou pipes up, although that’s probably not the right approach to take with Haikuan. As sweet and easygoing as Haikuan usually is, he is also the most stubborn of anyone once he decided to dig his heels in about something.

“Well, isn’t it convenient then that you are fucking your friend so that there is nothing wrong with always being together. Whereas I have to figure out how many of you assholes I’ll have to risk offending and how much ribbing I have to put up with to make it okay to bring my boyfriend!”

Xiao Zhan pauses for a moment, looking at Haikuan in surprise. Then he abandons his sketch pad entirely and turns around, although before he can really walk towards Haikuan, Yizhou pulls him fully onto his lap.

For a moment, he thinks a scream will escape his lips, but then he figures out how to swallow it, and looks at Haikuan once more. The last thing Haikuan needs to see right now is PDA by the exact people who he thinks of as his cockblockers.

“You really like him.” He finally says, hopefully kindly and not with the visceral aggravation he feels at the return of Yizhou’s fingers along the side of his thighs.

“He’s a sweet kid.” 

“And a good lay, I’m sure.” Yizhou pipes up.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” Haikuan says, getting heated again.

“What?” Yizhou asks now, not that bothered by Haikuan’s outburst.

“You’re so fucking thirsty for Xiao Zhan that you don’t even realize when you’re annoying the shit out of him.” 

Xiao Zhan’s eyes widen well and truly now as he stares at Haikuan.

“I’m sorry.” Haikuan mutters, looking apologetic. It doesn’t stop him from continuing though, “But you’re never going to tell him. Stop treating him like he’s porcelain just because you’re fucking each other. He doesn’t deserve that. He needs to know when you don’t appreciate his touch.”

“What the fuck!” Yizhou says, sitting up.

“Well, fuck.” Xiao Zhan says, sliding off of Yizhou’s lap.

“I’m sorry. It’s just driving me crazy. Everything is driving me crazy. Yes, I like Yibo. Is that so bad? What’s there not to like? He’s gorgeous, funny, sensitive, unpretentious, and such a grateful human being when you get to know him well. I’m fucking lucky he’s into me. And I’m tired of getting ribbed on by all you fuckers just because you’re all jealous.”

“Well, fuck.” Ji Li says from the doorway.

“I’m not jealous.” Yizhou says and Xiao Zhan smacks him on his knee. “Not the point.” He whispers before adding, “or the time.”

“We don’t begrudge you your good fortune.” Ji Li says with uncharacteristic formality, flipping open his fan and sending it vibrating to the tune of the general tension in the room. 

“We’re just jealous.” Ji Li adds. 

Haikuan lifts an eyebrow and falls back against the wall behind him. 

“But not of you, but of Yibo.” Ji Li finishes.

Haikuan looks up in surprise.

“Because Yibo now gets pretty much all of you, even when you’re with us.”

Xiao Zhan wonders if Ji Li is even aware of what he is saying. And whether he is aware of how much that is not a group sentiment as much as it is Ji Li’s sentiment.

He doesn’t think Ji Li is aware. Because Haikuan and Ji Li… they’ve been friends for so long that they’ve never had to question what is between them. Or how strong it is. 

“He’s infatuated. He’ll get over it eventually.” Yizhou says.

“You’re not helping in the least, Yizhou.” He murmurs.

“What? I’m just trying to keep it real. That’s exactly what it is. As much as he is into Yibo’s face and body and, yes, maybe some other parts of him that are not just his looks, you think he’s not going to drop all that shit if Ji Li needs him?” 

There is a gasp in the room, although Xiao Zhan is not sure where that has come from.

He closes his eyes and shakes his head. As much as he would like to blame Yizhou for shooting his mouth off about this, this is merely stating the obvious… obvious to the rest of them, that is. Someone needed to say it at some point. And if Haikuan and Ji Li decided that they had heard it and never wanted to do anything about it, well, at least, it would be an open and close deal, rather than something that was always swept and left under the carpet.

“I’m his best and longest friend. Obviously, he is not going to abandon me for a new face, no matter how fucking insanely gorgeous and sexy it is. Don’t fucking make things weird.” Ji Li says, snapping the fan closed with a loud thump.

There are a few prolonged moments of collective silence in the room. And then he speaks, no longer wishing to marinate in this tension. “Bring Yibo, Haikuan. Bring him to as many things as you would like. Bring whoever you’re dating too, Ji Li.”

“Fucking.” Ji Li corrects.

“Okay yes, fucking. Bring whoever you’re fucking too. It’s for a good cause. The more the merrier.” He finishes on a hard exhale.

This time when Yizhou’s hand creeps closer to his thigh, he grabs it and holds it, looking him in the eye. “Haikuan is right. I get really annoyed with this sort of thing. Not with you, Yizhou. Just with this sort of PDA. It’s a sensory thing. You understand?” 

Yizhou pauses for a moment, the unavoidable hurt evident in his eyes, but then he pulls his hand back with a grin. “I appreciate you telling me.”

He grins back, feeling lighter than he has in months.

xxxxxx

The event of contention arrives a week later. It’s Arts for Kids day that the school organizes annually that is enormous in scope. It’s hosted in the sports field and there are tents everywhere, all organized with different activities that exposes elementary school-age kids to all varieties of art. Xiao Zhan and Haikuan have manned the watercolor tent for the past two years with a few others from his department. While there are sections set up for watercolor tutorials and stations with students taking the kids in small groups, Xiao Zhan ends up doing the face-painting, which always ends up drawing a huge line. Kids do love face-painting. Although he finds that, he paints just as many adult faces as he does kids. 

Haikuan generally does the tutorials and Xiao Zhan looks over to see that he is smiling at the group of seven-year olds clustered around the table with him.

“What happened? You decided not to bring Wang Yibo after all?” He asks. It is still early and the field is mostly students, although a fair number of parents and kids are around as well. He has two five-year olds waiting for face-painting and he is carefully drawing on butterfly wings to the cheeks of the four-year old in front of him.

“He is at the dance tent. He’ll be here later.” Haikuan replies.

“He’s lucky, Haikuan.” He says, drawing Haikuan’s attention back.

“He’s lucky to have so much of your attention and…” he struggles for what word to use before settling on, “admiration.” 

Haikuan flushes a bit at that, although he is smiling too. “He’s really great. You would know if you got to know him well.”

He looks back at the four-year old in front of him and smiles when he sees her expression. “What a pretty butterfly you are.”

That makes her beam and he brings up his handheld mirror so she can see. She gasps and his smile widens, now in genuine pleasure. His day is already made.

A shadow falls above him just then and he looks up, thinking that the child’s parent has come to get her.

From his vantage point where he is crouched on the ground and looking up, the glare of the sun blinds him. It takes a moment before the face comes into view. He must still have his blinding smile on because he sees Yibo’s face turn up in a shy smile in return. His throat turns dry at the sight and he looks down to the little girl next to him, murmuring, “All done. Let’s go find mommy.” 

“Oh, right here.” A petite woman comes over, cooing over what an adorable butterfly she has. Once they move on, he looks at the other faces waiting in line and looks back up. By then, Yibo has already moved into the tent, now by Haikuan’s side, smiling easily at something Haikuan said. He turns away and focuses on the line of kids in front of him, glad to have a distraction.

When he comes up for air next, he has gone through about four boxes of paint and the sun is long past its zenith in the sky. He sees Meng Ziyi come over now, holding a drink in one hand and what he assumes in his lunch in the other.

“I figured you would lose time and not eat lunch.” She says, putting the food on the table next to him. A few of the students from his department are still at the tent with some kids, but there is no longer a crowd on the field. Haikuan and Yibo are not there either. He vaguely remembers Haikuan asking him what he wanted for lunch, but waving him off saying something like don’t bother. He is ravenous all of a sudden. He scarfs down the sandwich Ziyi had brought him while he watches Xuan Lu and MianMian walk over. Yizhou and Ji Li are with them too. 

“Is it finally our turn yet?” MianMian asks.

He drinks the cold green tea and brings a towel to wipe the sweat off his forehead. The tent has emptied out and he suggests that they all move inside. Every year, it’s become a tradition for all of his friends to get their face painted by him at some point during the day. They are always eager to see what designs he will come up with for each of them. This year though, he feels mentally fried. He tells them all to pick what they want. Yizhou wants some new anime obsession that he has that Xiao Zhan has to look up on his phone and Ji Li gets a sword splitting open over the line of symmetry of his face. He manages, just barely. He doesn’t think he has the energy for that level of fierceness as what Ji Li is picturing, and if he is less than satisfied, Ji Li doesn’t show it. Ziyi wants something from Naruto, so he paints Itachi bending with his characteristic somberness over her left eyebrow. MianMian appears to feel his exhaustion by the time it’s her turn and tells him that all she wants are rainbow colored clouds over the top part of her face. He feels so grateful that he makes them the prettiest clouds he had ever seen. Xuan Lu gets a meteor shower across her forehead. The girls are feeling kindly towards him, clearly. By now Haikuan and Yibo are back. Haikuan has brought him lunch. Ziyi tells him that she already did, but Xiao Zhan thanks him anyways and saves it for later.

“It’s your turn next.” He says to Haikuan. 

“You look wiped out. I can forgo it this year.”

“Are you kidding me? We all have it. You need one too.” Ji Li cuts in and Xiao Zhan nods, the matter decided.

He turns out to get a new box of paint out. It’s his last one for the day. Might as well make it good. Besides, the food and the all of them being around seems to have refueled at least some of his life force.

“What do you want?” he asks, rinsing off his brushes and grabbing a new cup of water.

“Can you paint his face?” 

He is in the middle of beating the brushes against the table and pauses.

“Paint whose face?” it’s Ji Li who asks.

“Yibo.” Haikuan answers.

“Where? On your face? That’s stupid.” Yizhou says helpfully.

“Not on my face. Maybe my arm?” Haikuan asks.

“He’s not a fucking tattoo parlor.” Yizhou again.

“Oh, come on! That’s a great idea.” Ziyi pipes up now, defusing Yizhou entirely with her enthusiasm.

“Arm is going to be too small. You should do it on like your chest or… or your back. Then you can do a big one.” She offers.

“What the fuck.” Yizhou says, more irritated now.

“Yea, we are in a public place. What is he supposed to do, walk around with an enormous painting of his boyfriend on his back?” Ji Li asks.

“Oh, come on, it’ll dry. He can put his shirt back on. Besides, it’s not that far of a walk back to the dorms.” Xuan Lu says now, backing up Ziyi.

“How is he going to see it if it’s on his back?” Ji Li asks.

“We’ll memorialize it with a picture for the gram. Without his face showing though, cuz we don’t want that level of cringe.” Ziyi offers. Xiao Zhan is glad she at least acknowledges the cringe factor.

“Oh, I’m glad you know it’s cringey.” Yizhou says.

“Please Yizhou. If you didn’t think Xiao Zhan would be creeped out by it, you would totally have his face tattooed somewhere on your person.” Ziyi is the only one with guts enough to say that. And it shuts Yizhou up for good.

His back has been turned to the whole group until now, but he finally turns around. 

He watches Haikuan’s face and knows the worst thing to do would be to overreact. Haikuan is in the throes of an infatuation on an entirely different level if he made a request like this one in front of all these people.

“I can do it on the arm, chest, or back. Your pick.” He says as he ushers Haikuan over to the chair next to him. 

Haikuan looks a bit sheepish now, although he still doesn’t back out, but now he does seem aware that in all their discussion, he has skipped over asking Wang Yibo whether he is okay with having his face painted on someone’s body.

He turns back around so that he doesn’t need to watch their murmured discussion, but he assumes Yibo is okay with it when Haikuan comes over to sit on the chair next to him.

“What’s your opinion?” he asks. “Where is it easiest to paint?”

“Back” he answers. If they’re going to do this, he might as well work on a large surface area. It’ll wash off anyway.

Haikuan takes off his shirt, a sight he has seen a million times before, given that they live together, and sits on the chair in reverse, bending over its back. Haikuan is all lanky muscle, thanks to all the swimming that he does and aside from the pronounced column of knobs running down the top of his neck giving way to the long narrow groove running down the middle all the way down to the twin dimples below, it’s a hard and smooth surface. 

“Where do you need me to sit?” Yibo asks. 

He gestures to the table and Yibo looks confused for a moment. “You want me to sit on top of the table?”

He nods. “I need details of the face.”

Yibo shrugs and hops on top of the table. 

“I can see this is going to take a bit. We’ll get some boba and be back. What do you guys want?” Ji Li asks and after taking their orders, the little group is gone and he is alone with the love birds. He feels odd, but he tells himself to treat it like an art assignment. That’s not hard to do. Besides, it’s not like he’s drawing a nude subject. He is just drawing _on_ a nude subject. Partially nude.

He is quiet in the beginning, as is Haikuan, and while they are both comfortable with their silences, having been friends for as long as they’ve been, Haikuan and Yibo are still new and Haikuan now attempts to make conversation with Yibo, even though he cannot see him as Yibo is sitting behind him.

For his part, Yibo responds to Haikuan’s overtures easily enough although he doesn’t attempt to prolong any specific thread of conversation and after several turns like this, it strikes Xiao Zhan that Yibo is trying to keep as still as possible in consideration of him, the painter. But he also doesn’t want to offend his new-ish senior boyfriend, so it’s a catch-22. 

“Stop making him talk. I can’t paint if he keeps moving around.” He taps on Haikuan’s shoulder and tells him. And that effectively kills all talk and he can tell Haikuan is relieved. He uses only black and navy blue and a bad bit of white for colors and goes for broad sweeps rather than details. It’s in his best interest to finish it as quickly as possible. After a few minutes, he catches Yibo staring at him, but when caught, he looks down sheepishly and takes out his phone. That pose works better than expected as it forces Yibo’s face down a bit, bringing it into profile and a bit tilted to the front. He has that pout on his lips that he does, once again it coming across as a habit that he is not fully aware of, especially as he is focused on the game on his phone. At some point, he needs a bit more, and so he tilts up Yibo’s chin by the tip of his index finger.

Yibo’s eyes fly open in surprise and Xiao Zhan sees the quick flicker of awareness in Yibo’s eyes before he pulls his finger back. He returns to his skin canvas and continues, not looking Yibo’s way again. Because clearly, eye contact is no good between them.

When he is done, he stands back, not alerting Yibo that he is done until Yibo notices that he is taking off his apron.

He hears the gasp from Yibo, which makes Haikuan straighten from the chair.

“Are you done?”

“Holy shit.”

Haikuan stands up now, trying to twist his head around. Xiao Zhan passes him the handheld mirror and holds up another mirror behind him. Although it’s still not a good view. Especially because one half of Haikuan’s back, from the shoulder down is Yibo’s face bent in profile, the groove down the middle running just to the right of where he had painted Yibo’s nose and lips, making the entire thing seem almost three-dimensional. There’s a sweep of his hair that has fallen over the front which he has tinged with blue at the ends.

“You’re a genius, aren’t you?” Yibo asks.

“I draw and paint.” He answers, the implication apparent that it has about as much overlap with genius as anything else would. 

“He is.” Haikuan confirms and asks Yibo to take a picture so that he can see properly.

That spurs Yibo into action and he clicks out of his game to take a bunch of pictures from different angles. Xiao Zhan moves out of the way and then out of the tent because now he just feels like he is intruding.

He is tired and wants a nap and wonders if anyone would mind if he returned to the dorms now. A minute later, he decides on just that and grabs the food that Haikuan had brought him before starting the walk back to the dorms. Halfway through the walk, he texts the group that he is beat and heading back earlier and that he’ll catch everyone later.

He hears the beep of the texts in return and then his phone is ringing and he knows it’s Yizhou. He thinks of not answering, but that would just make Yizhou worry, so he does pick up and assure him that he is okay, just tired. 

Then he turns his phone off. 

He knows his mood is off by the time he reaches his dorm room. He doesn’t want to delve into the why even though the reason teases the edge of his awareness as if it’s mocking him for being so goddamn human after all.

He crawls into bed and after a bit of fitful turning, he manages to fall asleep. There are dreams though. Dreams that are sequences that start abruptly or end abruptly, with barely a conclusion, his mind chasing after them like timestamps in a video, trying to figure which went after what. Ultimately, he is simply exhausted and opens his eyes in the dark, snug under his covers. He wants to pull off the covers to look at the time and to get a drink of water, but stops when he hears murmurs. Then… not murmurs, but little throaty moans, the scrape of teeth and the wet pull of tongue and lips. He plugs his ears gently, not wishing to hear more, but at same time not wanting to alert Haikuan and… company… that he is awake. 

When his ears starting ringing with the plugging, he is forced to remove his hands. He hears the rustle of the sheets and… limbs and other parts… being readjusted. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to think of other things. Counting backwards from 100. That, he imagines, would be highly effective in inducing sleep. He makes it to 87 when he hears Haikuan’s whisper.

“Are you holding your breath?” 

For a moment, he wonders if Haikuan is talking to him because… yes, he now realizes, he _is_ holding his breath.

Instead, he hears Yibo’s rush of an exhale and then, “Sorry, I don’t always know when I’m doing that.”

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Haikuan says back, his tone gentle.

“I want to.” Yibo replies.

There is a bit more rustling now and then once again Haikuan’s deep voice urging, “Breathe baby.” 

Xiao Zhan swallows hard at that baby. His belly is clenched tight and his hands feel clammy. He thinks he’ll pass out from the heat of his blanket. Or give himself away somehow during the pivotal moment of Wang Yibo’s… deflowering.

Taking what he thinks is a calculated risk, he rolls over and falls off the bed, and yelps when his ribs hit something hard. 

“Fuck.” He hears Haikuan’s expletive, although it’s whispered.

After a moment, he hears, “Xiao Zhan, you awake?” 

He thinks of just lying on the floor and pretending to be out still, but figures that will just prolong this misery.

He makes an injured sound and whispers out, “I think I just fell off the bed and hit something.” 

Master of stating the obvious that he was, he just lies there afterward, allowing Haikuan to decide what he wants to do. 

“Ok.” Haikuan says. “I’m… not decent. Will you give me a minute?” 

“Yea, of course.” What he had been waiting for. He leaves the room, walks down the hallway, and downstairs into the LED corner of the lounge where there is a vending machine. He gets a water, presses it against his neck and forehead, feels it not as cold as it should be, and wonders if he’s coming down with a fever.

He thinks of returning to his room, but can’t, and so he walks out of the dormitory. He has his room keys, but no phone, he realizes once he has walked almost to the dining hall. He shouldn’t be out, he knows, and thus walks back to the dorm, even though it’s the last thing he wants to do. He doesn’t return to his room though; instead he falls asleep on the couch in the lounge. 

xxxxx


	3. Part 3

Haikuan continues to date Yibo, but doesn’t ever bring him to their room ever again. He still runs into Yibo on campus and when they are all together and he nods politely and is as friendly to Yibo as he is to everyone else. But, he is always careful to never be alone with Yibo.

That spring goes by quicker than the last one, or at least that is what it feels like. But he thinks that he feels that every spring. A month before graduation, he breaks up with Yizhou. Although he is not sure that they were ever officially together to merit a formal breakup. They had simply gone from being friends to sleeping together to… he is not an asshole to expect that Yizhou can go right back to being friends. But he has been feeling guilty that while the sex continues to be great, emotionally, he has hit a wall that he cannot break through. And Yizhou doesn’t deserve that. It isn’t a great conversation, but he had not thought it would be. Yizhou tries to convince him that they can continue as they are, that he can keep his feelings in check. 

“But why should you have to?” he asks.

“We were great without the sex, Yizhou. If one day you feel like you are ready for that again, I’ll be waiting.” He says.

Graduation is a huge affair. The celebration is almost an entire week. His parents are thrilled and act like he is moving away even though he is continuing at the college campus right next door. So is Haikuan, Ji Li, and Yizhou. They pick the dormitory with the suites and their suite has three bedrooms. He takes one room with Ji Li and Haikuan takes the other with Yizhou. The third room is taken over by new students, Cao Yuchen and Wang Rong, who are good looking and laidback enough to fancy themselves a trip-hop duo. Wang Rong has a veritable bevy of dudes – of all years of college and some even from the MFA program, coming in and out of his room. This does not seem to bother Cao Yuchen and Wang Rong is always respectful regarding his… night-time (and occasionally afternoon) habits… so there’s nothing to complain about. He does do a double-take the first time Yibo visits during one weekend, running into him while Yibo is in the common room of the suite playing video games. 

“Oh hello.” Xiao Zhan hears Wang Rong’s greeting to Yibo. 

The game doesn’t stop, but he does hear a return “Hey.”

“And you are…?” Wang Rong asks, not dissuaded by Yibo’s distraction or apparent lack of interest.

“Mine.” He hears Haikuan’s voice from the other room, the possessiveness not just the word, but a living breathing thing that envelops the space. 

Yibo starts coming once every few weekends and when it happens, he catches Yizhou on the futon in the common room. He feels badly on occasion, and starts to offer his own bed, taking off for his parents’ when he knows Yibo’s visiting. They are happy that he comes so often, although this pattern doesn’t escape Haikuan’s notice, who brings it up with him one night when it’s just the two of them in the common room watching a movie.

“Why do you go out of your way to avoid him?” Haikuan asks abruptly, during a commercial break, with no preamble.

“Who?” he feels compelled to ask.

“Wang Yibo.”

“I… don’t really avoid him, per se. It’s just a sight to see Yizhou on this futon so often is all.”

Haikuan is taken aback by this. “I have checked in with Yizhou about this, several times in fact. It doesn’t bother him.”

“Oh.” Is all he can say in return. 

And he stops going to his parents’ so often. Which means, on occasion, when Yibo comes over to spend the weekend, he has to join the group. It turns out to be not so bad. Yibo is funny, sarcastically so, especially once he is comfortable. He is surprisingly deferential to geges; Xiao Zhan can see why so many of them – really whoever meets Yibo here – appears smitten by him. Not always in a sexual way, but in an adoring way. His attraction is not so special after all, he is forced to acknowledge at some point. He is just one of the many who has fallen under the spell. When he thinks of it that way, it gets easier to move past it. 

By the spring of freshman year of college, Yizhou is dating again. And Xiao Zhan releases a sigh of relief that he hadn’t realized he had been holding in the whole time. He had turned down everyone who had asked him thus far without realizing that it had been because he wanted Yizhou to move on first. 

When Yizhou starts going steady with someone for a few months, he finally agrees to a date. It’s a junior he met at an art retreat at a local farm, part of a program encouraging synergy between the farming and arts community in Chongqing. 

They go to a farm-to-table restaurant nearby for dinner and it’s a good time. And he thinks that it’s been a long time indeed since he has spent any significant amount of time with people he hadn’t known half his life.

When he gets back to the dorm, the guys are in the middle of watching a movie and he joins them quietly, taking the edge of the largest sofa that is the only place to squeeze in. It’s some horror movie and whoever’s sitting next to him is not a fan. Because at some point, they reach over and start squeezing his arms every time there is a jumpscare. He is not wearing his glasses – vanity had clashed with good sense and won for the date – and he is not the biggest fan of horror movies and thus doesn’t mind that he has to squint to be able to see even the bit that he is actually watching. He is too polite to ask them to let go of his hand and halfway through he realizes that he is not just dealing with someone inordinately jumpy, but someone who is terrified because during the last scene, nails dig into his skin hard enough to be rather painful. He leans over to whisper that it helps if you just block out the music because half the scare is in the background score. He doesn’t get a response and imagines that maybe they did not appreciate unsolicited advice on getting through horror movies. But a few minutes later, he sees the person bring the blanket on his lap around his head in an evident attempt to block out the sounds. The hold around his wrist is less painful, but not gone.

When the movie is finally over and the lights are turned on, it takes him a moment to realize that the hand holding onto his is Yibo’s. He removes it immediately before he notices that Haikuan has fallen asleep on Yibo’s other side. Either way, it didn’t matter whether Haikuan saw or not.

“I’m sorry.” Yibo says, just as Haikuan starts to stir. 

“I did not realize that you were such a scaredy car, Yibo.” Ji Li calls out from his perch at the bottom of the couch with Yizhou. Now he can see Cao Yuchen and Wang Rong too. Cao Yuchen is squeezed onto the other side of Haikuan while Wang Rong is all over some boy on the other couch.

“Destroyed my hand, he did.” Hiakuan says sleepily, picking up and inspecting where there indeed are marks just like the ones on Xiao Zhan’s hand. 

“Destroyed Zhan Ge’s too.” Yibo says, picking up his hand to show Haikuan. “Who told you to fall asleep half way through?” he asks as Haikuan laughs and reaches for Xiao Zhan’s hand to inspect. And for a moment Xiao Zhan feels like a fool for acting like there was some clandestine situation going on between him and Yibo when Yibo is as transparent as his mother’s window that invites birds to often fly into it.

The entire night sours in his head and he pleads fatigue and retreats to his room.

xxxx

He does nevertheless continue to date the junior, who is an excellent conversationalist on a wide range of topics. They have a lot of fun on their dates, which ranges from movies to fishing trips to bird watching to star gazing. His friends pick on him for a bit about it because they are wondering where he is getting his business done when he always returns to the suite alone, the only trip that kept him past midnight the stargazing one. They are loudly discussing all the places he may be getting it on on campus one Friday evening when Yibo comes over.

Xiao Zhan is in his room getting ready for yet another date and he can hear all the theories being batted back and forth. Wang Rong thinks that most convenient place is the junior’s room, but Ji Li has insider sources (tf) and knows that the junior is not bringing anyone back home. Cao Yuchen posits that Xiao Zhan – being the artistic soul he is – may be into doing it out in the nature, “like you know, maybe on a blanket by the pond in some forest.”

He has to laugh at that.

“Yes, that way they can just jump in the pond and clean off right after.” Ji Li is in support of this idea.

Haikuan is listening with amusement, although not offering any theories of his own. Yizhou, Xiao Zhan, observes gratefully, is not about to out him given he is the only one in the group with any personal knowledge of his preferences.

“Maybe it’s one of the study rooms in the library.” Yibo says.

There is a brief moment of silence when everyone considers that and then Ji Li says, “Nah, too high school.”

“Why? I think he would be into that sort of thing.” Yibo counters.

He can see through the opening in his room into the common room where this discussion is taking place and he can see now that Haikuan is looking at Yibo curiously.

“Oh please. You don’t know Xiao Zhan like that.” Ji Li rebuts easily and moves on. 

And now he remembers that M.A.C. print ad of Yibo’s that he had found outside his study room in the library that day a long time ago. He had picked it up wondering why someone had gone to the trouble of ripping it out of a magazine only to randomly lose it somewhere. And he remembers that that was during the beginning of when he and Yizhou had started hooking up and they were going at it like rabbits anywhere there could be even a minute amount of privacy. Not that anything had really happened in that study room other than some heavy groping and petting, but…

“Were you peeping in on us?” Yizhou blurts out. He doesn’t look mad as much as surprised.

“Oh jeez! You got it on in the study room and ruined this poor baby’s eyes?” Ji Li asks, grabbing Yibo to him and covering his eyes.

“Hardly a baby.” Xiao Zhan mutters, coming out of his room and Yibo looks up in surprise. 

“We’re just joking around.” Haikuan says and all he hears in Haikuan’s tone is his defense of his precious baby. He has had it up to about here with Yibo always being around wherever he is. Didn’t tenth graders have enough work for him to always be hanging around here.

“Well, I would appreciate it if everyone did not think it their prerogative to openly discuss my sex life in the common room.” He says as he grabs his jacket and heads out.

He has made it almost to the parking lot when he hears “Zhan ge, hold on” from the back. He stops and sighs. Maybe he should do a semester abroad, take a break from this whole scene. Their little group was together often enough to the point that it was starting to border on incestuous. 

By the time Yibo catches up with him, he is out of breath, and Xiao Zhan tries not to tap his hand against his thigh in impatience as he waits for him to speak. He is feeling especially mean today and does not want to take it out on “the baby.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you.” Yibo says finally, straightening.

“It’s ok. You’re fine.” He waves it off before turning to walk away.

“You really don’t like me, do you?” Yibo asks from behind him when he has walked a few steps.

He stops and sighs to the sky before turning back around. 

“Why does everyone have to like you? Isn’t it enough that everyone at the suite is always hanging on every word that comes out of your mouth? Isn’t it enough that you have collected enough Geges here to never run out of them in life? I’m not even sure how you’re still in high school? Do you go to any of your classes? Or are you just skating by on everyone giving you an easy pass in life because they find you cute or sexy?”

What the fuck is he even saying? He knows none of those things are true. Yibo is a solid A- student in most classes. He brings his books whenever he comes over during the weekends and he has seen his work spread out on the table in the common room at times when he is doing assignments. 

“Wow.” Yibo says in response. He pauses and Xiao Zhan feels the need to fill that gap in with some contrition. But his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth and will not move.

“That’s a lot.” Yibo finishes, blinking unnaturally. 

Xiao Zhan takes a deep breath and tries again. Say something. Fucking anything. The boy is four years younger for God’s sake. It is practically like hurting a baby. Fully grown annoying babies that everyone cherished. But still. Maybe he _is_ just jealous.

“Don’t mind me.” He finally manages before his internal monologue ran away from him.

“I have tried. But you make it sort of hard.” Yibo answers.

Xiao Zhan looks up at that, confused. “What does that mean?”

“I mean, it’s been clear for a long while that I sort of rub you the wrong way. I’m not always easy to like when you first meet me… but usually when people get to know me, I sort of grow on them. I think, at least. So, I thought if you… got used to me, you might not find me so…” he hesitates for a moment before he continues, “unlikable…”

He thinks for a moment it’s sort of ridiculous how cute Yibo is, like if the Creator thought to make one of him, then they should have just made thousands of him because what is the point of teasing everyone like this and only making him available to one. Haikuan must have saved a country and martyred himself in his past seven lives.

“Yibo, there’s no need to get me to like you or dislike you. Honestly. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just a waste of your effort to get everyone to like you. If they don’t, it’s their loss and not worth your time and energy. Now go back before Haikuan sends out a search party.” 

He hopes his sentiment is clear enough. If he speaks more, it will only lead to places he shouldn’t go and he turns away. 

“But I like you.” Yibo says, freezing him to his spot.

He doesn’t turn back to face Yibo though because Yibo doesn’t need to see his face right now.

“You’re one of the best people I have met in my life. You’re so talented and smart and funny. And sweet. It’s not so bad to want you to like me. Is it?” he asks. Earnestly. 

Xiao Zhan stands rooted to the ground, feeling like his feet wouldn’t move it he tried. A semester abroad, preferably in some place like Antarctica is what he needs. 

“I like you too, Yibo. What’s not to like?” he says, turning back around. Then, before his voice gives him away, he adds, “I definitely wouldn’t let you date one of my best friends in the world if I didn’t think well of you.” He smiles.

Yibo’s expression is unreadable for a moment and then he too smiles.

“I’m sorry about earlier.” He says now.

“Me too.” Xiao Zhan replies.

“Friends?” Yibo asks, extending his hand.

Xiao Zhan laughs. “You didn’t listen to anything I said before, did you?” he asks, even though he takes the extended hand.

Yibo’s hold is sure and warm, more than he expected given that the kid is barely 16. 

Yibo smiles, shaking their joined hands twice. “I did. And I believe I offered some solid rebuttals, Zhan ge.”

Afterwards, he pretends to walk away for a few steps and then turns around to watch Yibo jog back to the dorms.

Later on, when he meets up with the junior, he tells him he’s ready. And finally, they go back to the junior’s room. It’s been a long time since he’s had sex. And he is not without worry that the previous problem will crop up once more. And it does. As if it was waiting for it, sometime in the middle of finding his pleasure, his mind starts retrieving the millions of images it has collected over the past two years. Of large hands, and flashing earnest eyes, of a tight hold around his wrist and nails dug in painfully, of the voice softly asking, _It’s not so bad to want you to like me. Is it?_ Afterwards, once the junior has fallen asleep, he lays awake staring at the ceiling. And knows that he needs to finally make a decision.

xxxxxxx

He doesn’t tell the rest of them until the academic year is almost over and then they react about as well as he expected.

“Why would you do that? Did we do something wrong?” Ji Li asks. He would be the one most directly affected after all as he will be the one losing the roommate. 

He shrugs. “I just want to try getting a studio apartment for next year. I’m going to have some bigger art projects and this way I don’t always have to be on campus looking for space to work. I can just set in up where I live. I didn’t want to tell you that I was looking because it was going to be hard to find a place like what I was looking for. But something just became available pretty close to campus. The rent is decent too. So…”

They give him shit for it a bit longer, but ultimately, they can see the merit in what he is saying.

“Hey, one more off-campus place to store liquor.” Ji Li says finally. “And have parties.” Yizhou says, nuzzling his boyfriend’s nape, which practically makes the boyfriend moan out loud. They have all gotten used to it, so it barely brings out any reactions in anyone. He is happy that Yizhou is happy. And has a boyfriend who is majorly into PDA and looks at Yizhou like he worships him. He thinks everyone deserves that.

On the last day of their first year, when he packs up the room to move out, he feels like it’s the end of an era. It’s bittersweet. They are all off for the summer break back to their homes. It’s the same as every summer, although he feels it more during this one. Like things are changing. Changing to different things. And he wonders if he will like all the changes. Even if some of them, he had brought about on his own.

xxxx

His sophomore year of college starts like any other, although now he is alone in his studio apartment by himself. He enjoys setting up the space – small though it is – just the way he likes it. There is a huge canvas of a painting he had taken almost all summer to complete leaning against one wall of open brick. He buys yards of cream linen and stitches his own ceiling to floor window drapes, which seems to add three feet to the length of the room immediately. He had gotten an old wrought iron queen bed frame at an antique store for a decent price and his one solid splurge is a good mattress to go on top of it. The only couch – a worn out leather love seat – is from a distant aunt who was downsizing and he does it up with a blanket his mother had knit two winters ago. Overall, it’s cozy. Like it would do for his own first home. 

All the boys come over the first weekend for their own version of house-warming. The girls come too. Ziyi and MianMian bring a tea set and Xuan Lu brings some gourmet scones. Ji Li and Yizhou bring a good knife set with a note that says that they expect to be fed home-cooked meals on the regular. Haikuan gives him a frame picture in distressed wood of the whole gang that they had taken last summer, “just so you won’t forget who holds you down all the time.” Xiao Zhan rolls his eyes, although he is moved. It’s a beautiful photograph, as candid as it’s possible to get of a group. He notices gratefully that Yibo is not in the picture. Although Yibo is there now in the apartment with the rest of them, shyly passing over a gift bag that has tissue paper haphazardly stuffed inside. He pulls it out and underneath is a large cream-colored woven dream-catcher and a note attached that says, “So Zhan ge will always only have good dreams.”

Ziyi insists of hanging it up right away and finds a place for it right by the window sill, the color of it blending in with the drapes and making it seem like a set. 

He has made a range of appetizers and they all sit around that afternoon in every corner of the little space in the apartment and it’s nice. A different kind of nice.

“It won’t be the same without you.” Ji Li says as they are leaving. His new roommate is some sophomore from the music department. “He’s a bit odd, if you ask me.” Ji Li says. But Ji Li can get along with anyone, so he expects that it will work out okay.

xxxxxxx

That year goes by in a blur. As much as he enjoys living alone, there are times when he misses his friends like he misses a limb that he had taken for granted. But they come over enough that it’s bearable. Yibo comes with Haikuan sometimes, but not always. And he realizes half way through the year that what he most likes about living alone is how he can go months sometimes without seeing Yibo. Life is easier that way.

The summer after his sophomore year, he spends setting up his own work studio with a few guys from his department. They rent a place cheaply and accepts mainly freelance, the three of them all specializing in different areas. That summer, he learns from Haikuan that Yibo has gone to Beijing to shoot some web drama that his agency has set up for him. Haikuan comes over a lot that summer, moping around about how he misses Yibo and Xiao Zhan learns to deal with someone else missing Yibo, allowing him finally the relief of vicarious experience. Ji Li comes over a lot too, mainly to cheer up Haikuan. Yizhou spends most of the summer with his boyfriend, so they see him less often.

The beginning of junior year, Yibo’s web drama is released. It largely goes unnoticed amidst the general population, although on their campus, he gains some fame even though he is still a senior is high school and still a solid year away from starting college. When he is on campus with Haikuan, he is recognized more often, something that starts to cause some friction between them. Xiao Zhan stays out of it, as much as he can.

“I feel like he’s sort of slipping away.” Haikuan says one night over beer.

“So don’t let him.” he answers, taking a sip from his own. He didn’t like this particular beer so much, but always kept a case around because it was Haikuan’s favorite.

“I don’t think it’s recent. This drama thing just made it so that I can’t ignore it. But it’s been different for some time… maybe even all of last year.”

He is not sure how to respond to that as he wasn’t there to see it in action. “Maybe you’re just reading into it. I can’t tell much of a difference when you guys are over here.”

“Yea, he is fine when he’s here. But when we are back at the dorm, it’s different. I don’t know. He seems preoccupied a lot, although he tries not to let it show.”

“He has a lot going on, Haikuan. Maybe the agency is putting pressure on him.”

“They don’t ask him to do anything during the year. It’s really only during the summer that he has work with them.”

And then he wonders why he is speaking in Yibo’s defense as if he knows anything about how and what Yibo thinks. 

“Why don’t you try talking to him?” he asks.

Haikuan is quiet for some time after, nursing his beer. And then he nods. “I think I keep putting it off because maybe it won’t go so well.”

xxxxx

By winter, things have gotten worse between Haikuan and Yibo, Ji Li tells him. They don’t fight so much as there is some sort of awkwardness between them. Yibo doesn’t come over to the suite as much anymore, which Ji Li feels is a shame because he genuinely likes the kid.

After the winter break, he learns that Haikuan has officially called it quits. But it’s sent Haikuan into a bit of a tailspin and Ji Li laments that Haikuan insists on going to every campus party there is, now feeling the need to make up for the first two years of college that he lost due to monogamy. 

“He’s being a bit of a douche, if you ask me.” Ji Li says, although he sounds worried more than critical. 

“Give him some time. First loves are hard to get over.”

Especially if your first love is Yibo.

Ji Li nods. 

By spring, Haikuan’s partying and sleeping around has started to abate. Xian Zhan is grateful that Ji Li is there always to pick up the pieces. 

Yizhou move off campus with his boyfriend during their senior year, so Ji Li and Haikuan decides to room together. Xiao Zhan is glad. Although now that they are living together, he wonders how long before the inevitable happens. It’s only been like 9 years in the making. 

There is a big difference now though. Yibo is finally on campus, as a freshman in college. Although Yibo has spent so much time on campus already that it feels odd that he is only a freshman now.

Yibo has a single with Yu Bin, Ji Li tells him, and his own group of friends. He seems like he is doing well, but maybe he doesn’t smile as often as he used to. Xiao Zhan nods. It’s been a long time since he has seen Yibo. As much as he had occasionally begrudged Yibo’s intrusion into his group, now that the last link to him is gone, he has to wonder how much of his head was just a big mass labeled hypocrite. 

xxxxx

And then in late October, a few weeks after his birthday, he randomly sees Yibo at a coffee house near his apartment. Yibo is with a few friends and he does not want to interrupt. So, he pretends to not see him while he waits in line, although his eyes eat him up discreetly just the same, and rather than his original plan to stay and work there, he turns around with his coffee and walks back to his apartment. 

It’s a walk-up and he is just about to climb the stairs when he hears, “Xiao Zhan!” from behind him.

He turns around a bit awkwardly and waits as Yibo walks over the rest of the way. 

“Hey…” Yibo says, holding the cup away from him as if he found it distasteful.

“Hey…” he answers. 

“Long time.” Yibo says, shifting to his other foot.

He doesn’t want to continue the awkwardness on the stairs where other tenants will have to walk in between to get through and so asks, “Would you like to come in?” 

“Uh. Yea. Okay. If that’s okay with you.” Yibo nods.

As he walks up the rest of the way to the apartment, he almost asks Yibo if he is alone, but catches himself at the last minute before giving away that he had seen him at the coffee shop.

Once they are inside, he directs Yibo to the kitchen island while he goes to pull the drapes open. 

“You kept it.” Yibo says. He follows Yibo’s gaze up to the dream catcher still hanging on the window sill. 

“I’ve been having only good dreams. No reason to take it off.” He answers with a smile. 

“Maybe I should try it then.” Yibo says, although when he looks at Yibo, he looks contrite as if he had not meant to say something like that out loud.

He walks back to the kitchenette and starts the kettle before he asks Yibo, “Don’t like your drink?”

Yibo looks down at his drink. “I asked for no sugar. This definitely has sugar.”

“I have jasmine tea or green tea. Some oolong too.” He says as he opens up the drawer where he keeps his tea sachets. 

“Oh no. Don’t worry. Really. I’m ok.” 

“It’s really just heating up water. The kettle’s already on.” He says without looking back.

“Ah. Ok then, I guess jasmine?”

He nods and gets a cup out from the cupboard.

“This place… hasn’t changed much.” Yibo says and he looks back to see that Yibo is looking around the apartment as if it’s much bigger than the 350 square feet it is. 

He doesn’t answer as he returns to Yibo’s tea, pouring the hot water into the cup.

“I was worried it would have.” Yibo says again and Xiao Zhan stills. 

“Why?” he asks, telling himself to be careful when he returns to pouring the rest of the water.

“You’re always changing. Every time I see you. This time around, it’s been so long that I wondered…”

“That’s a… strange observation.” He says after a moment, turning around with the cup to the island. 

“It’s not bad. Everyone’s always moving, you know. That’s normal. But sometimes, you move more quickly than the rest and I feel like I lag behind more and more each time.”

He feels a tightness on the back of his hand and rubs it, the nerves there pinching tight. 

“Then it’s good to not see me often.” He says after some time, looking back up, trying to smile. Yibo’s tea is ready and he pushes it closer to him.

Yibo looks like he is about to say something, but at the last moment, he covers it with a grin and picks up the teacup.

He takes a sip and then sighs. 

“Thank you.” He says softly. “I can’t tell you how much I needed that.”

He smiles back. 

Yibo doesn’t stay long, just enough to finish the tea, but before he leaves though, he asks, “Can I visit you sometime? I won’t be offended if you say no.” 

The pinching on the back of his hand is back. He nods through it. 

Yibo smiles. 

He flexes his hand as he tries to rub his nerves off.

Xxxxxxxxx


	4. Part 4

The next time he sees Yibo is a month later, once again at the coffee house near his place, although today Yibo is alone.

He wonders if it’s on purpose when Yibo waits until he has his coffee in hand and walks out before Yibo comes up to him, grinning with mischief as he says, “They keep putting sugar in my coffee.”

“Really?” he can’t help a smile.

“Hmm… Maybe this time I can try that Oolong.” 

And this time, he stays longer, getting Xiao Zhan to make the tea twice. 

He is taking mostly easy classes, he says, so things are manageable. “No one seems to notice that I have these good looks, Zhan ge. I keep trying to tell all my professors that I have it on good authority that I’m so good-looking that I can just skate by in life, but they’re definitely not buying it.”

“You’re going to hold that over me forever, aren’t you?” he asks, amused.

“Forever.” Yibo affirms. 

Xxxxx

Once more, they run into each other at the coffee house, but then Yibo abandons that pretense altogether and starts dropping by pretty regularly, often for no reason at all other than to stay on his kitchen island and do his work. During Saturday afternoons, he comes over when Xiao Zhan has his apron on and the paint is smudged here and there on his skin and there is a large well-used sheet covering most of his floor where an enormous easel is set up and he is painting. Yibo likes watching him paint while he works. It takes some getting used to, having someone in the background while he paints, but there is always a playlist of soft background scores on his laptop and eventually they can spend hours like that, the music playing and the two of them sharing the space in companionable silence. Yibo never interrupts when he is painting and for that he is grateful. 

It’s frighteningly easy how habits form and curl around life and then the habits themselves are everything. He doesn’t know how long it takes for it to be normal to have Yibo over to his place by 9 in the mornings on Saturdays. Or how many Saturdays it takes for it to be normal that Yibo eats both breakfast and lunch at his place. Eventually Yibo insists on making the breakfast himself, although he admits that lunch beyond Ramen is out of his scope. Xiao Zhan doesn’t mind. He enjoys cooking. And making food for two versus one is not that big a deal.

Yibo is always gone before 4 and Haikuan, Ji Li, and Yizhou don’t come over until after six. Is it the lack of overlap between his time with Yibo and anyone else he knows that allows him to think that those hours are some alternate reality that does not need to be acknowledged? He doesn’t know. 

xxxxx

The betting starts innocently enough. He thinks, at least. Hindsight is not 20/20 in this case.

Yibo comes over one Saturday complaining of a crick in his neck. When he complains of it for the fifth time, Xiao Zhan asks him to go get a massage.

“Why don’t you give me one?” Yibo is all toothy grin at this request.

“Hell no.” he answers.

“Rock, paper, scissors.” Yibo extends his hand. “If you lose, you have to give me a massage.”

“And if I win?” Xiao Zhan asks with a scoff.

Yibo thinks about that for a moment and then says with a genuine pout. “That’s not fair. I have nothing that you want.”

Xiao Zhan flexes his left hand. Those damn nerves. 

“You do.” He answers after a moment.

“What?” 

“Pose for one of my assignments.” He says.

Yibo thinks of that for a moment before he nods.

Xiao Zhan loses. 

He rubs Yibo’s shoulder for three minutes, Yibo directing the whole time, “Press harder. Harder. Put your shoulder into it, Zhan ge. Oh, come on, is that the best you can do?” until finally Xiao Zhan pushes him off and says, “Alright asshole. You’re all done.”

“Wait, what? That was only like 2 minutes.” 

“Three. And two more than I should have. Next time, wager more specifically.”

And Yibo does. “I would like a massage for ten minutes on my neck and shoulder area. And Zhen Ge. Put your back into it this time.”

It’s once again Rock Paper Scissors and, yet again, Xiao Zhan loses. 1 out of 3 chances of winning and he has lost twice in a row. 

He does put his back into it time because Yibo actually appears to be in pain. He has joined the street dancing club on campus and they are kicking his ass in those competitions. But he is excited when he talks about it, about how good the other students are, like really good, he says. He should know, he trained in Korea for two years. But this is different. The motivation is different. It’s more natural, they are lifting each other up with their rivalry. Not tearing down. But his body is a mess.

“Every single muscle hurts. So really Zhan ge, put your all into it.” There is that pout again. Although Xiao Zhan thinks this one is intentional. Like Yibo knows no sentient being would be able to say no to this brand of adorable begging.

“First it’s my shoulder, then it’s my back, now it’s my all.” Xiao Zhan shakes his head. “Which one do you want?”

There is a lingering pause which makes him lean forward as he presses his elbow into the large tight knot just between Yibo’s shoulder bone and neck. 

“I want all of you.” Yibo murmurs.

His elbow slips a bit and he fakes as if he means it. He thinks of saying something witty to smooth over the moment, but when he catches a glimpse of Yibo’s face, his eyes closed and content, he lets it go.

When ten minutes end and he stops, Yibo pretends to slide off the chair and onto the floor. Xiao Zhan laughs as he moves on, going to put on his apron and get his brushes to resume where his painting is sitting, only a quarter finished.

When he looks back an hour later, Yibo is still on the floor, although now sound asleep. He smiles at the sight and puts down his brush to approach him. He is lying belly down, face turned to the side and there is the hint of a snore, a cute little noise that tickles him silly. He stares longer than he means to, his smile disappearing. 

_What the hell were they doing?_

He doesn’t want to think about it so he pokes at Yibo to wake up. Yibo pushes him away twice and in retaliation, he rubs his green paint smudged finger on Yibo’s cheek. The exposed one. There is not much of a response, so he rubs more. He thinks Yibo is awake, at least partially, but he stays there, eyes closed, not moving. At some point, his finger has no more paint left and so he goes to get more. He gets back to work with a lot more white this time, adding tinges of green and blue. It takes him a while to see that Yibo’s breathing has changed and that he is fully awake, although still keeping those eyes closed. When he is done and pulls back, Yibo finally opens his eyes.

Xiao Zhan smiles and gets up. Yibo sits up and puts his hand out to be pulled up. Xiao Zhan rolls his eyes although he extends his hand anyways. Yibo walks to the tiny attached bathroom that has the only mirror in the place. 

When he comes back out, Xiao Zhan is already back at his easel. 

“You painted a White Peony on me?” Yibo takes a seat on the arm of the love seat, looking up at him.

“You don’t like it?” he asks.

“You still see me as just a pretty boy.”

Xiao Zhan looks at him in surprise, his paintbrush pausing. 

“What’s wrong with being pretty?” he asks.

“Nothing.” Yibo says after a moment and gets up to walk away.

Without thinking, he holds Yibo’s wrist to stop him. “Hey… don’t be upset. I painted it only because it’s always been your nickname.”

“It’s alright.” Yibo says, a slight smile on his lips now. “Anything you paint is great. Really.”

Xiao Zhan tilts his head at Yibo’s tone.

Before Yibo walks away again, Xiao Zhan pulls him back.

“Why don’t you do it on my face too?” he asks.

“What? I don’t know how to paint.” He says.

“What does that matter? Just do whatever you like. I did after all paint on you without asking permission.”

“That’s true.” Yibo says, although after a moment, his eyes are practically twinkling when he adds, “Given that you did this without my permission, I should also get to pick where on you I can paint.”

Xiao Zhan narrows his eyes. “No.” he says automatically.

Yibo puts his hand up, clearly requesting another Rock Paper Scissors.

“I’m not playing this game with you again.”

“Oh come on, don’t be a killjoy. It’s just Rock Paper Scissors. A game of chance. How could I possibly cheat?”

And so, like an idiot, he plays again. Loses again.

Yibo’s grin is gleeful as he walks around him trying to find the best spot for this painting activity. 

“I remember that time long ago when you painted my face on Kuan ge. You said the back was the best part because it had the most surface area.”

Bringing up Haikuan should have made him wary. They had not discussed Haikuan yet. Although that had really no bearing on anything just then. 

Did it?

“You’re painting on my back?” He asks, turning back to the easel.

“Oh yes I am.” Yibo whispers in his ear from the back before his arms come around the waist to the front, under his apron.

He looks down to find Yibo’s hands make quick work of the buttons down the front and then he pulls off the shirt, pulling the collar out from under the apron strings and peeling it off fully from the back. For some reason, Yibo allows the apron to stay on and does not ask him to stop painting either when he picks his brush back up. He is glad because it allows him to pretend to do something as he tries to keep his nerves from crashing and burning altogether just from anticipating that first touch on his back.

It seems to take Yibo a long time and he starts wondering whether Yibo’s having second thoughts when Yibo reaches over to dip his hand into the umber red and adobe on the palette to the side of them. Yibo still lingers, his finger hovering over Xiao Zhan’s back in crazy slowness before finally grazing the skin, right under his right shoulder blade. His back arches involuntarily and he feels Yibo’s quiet exhale behind him, the warm air hitting just under his hairline. He closes his eyes and feels powerless as the brush in his hand flags. He concentrates on drawing in air slowly into his lungs when Yibo’s finger finally drags down his back. He doesn’t know if it’s because his back is oversensitive or because of the pressure of Yibo’s finger, a single heated point of contact drawing down over his nerves like a magnet, seeking only to heighten sensation, that makes each point along his back muscle Yibo touches contract and release one by one. It combines to make it seem like he has the slowest shiver running down his back. 

“Yibo” he calls softly, dropping his head forward.

“Will you hate me if I kiss you?” Yibo whispers. Xiao Zhan can feel the trembling of Yibo’s lips where they barely touch the top of his spine just under the neck string of his apron.

He thinks of saying yes, of not saying anything, of moving away, all the things he should do, but instead he reaches back for Yibo paint-free hand and pulls it to the front and brings it to his lips.

Yibo’s body sways into his back and it’s so warm even through Yibo’s shirt. 

And then it’s Yibo soft lips that he feels against the top of his shoulder blades and his sigh is wrung out from years of waiting.

Those lips are warm and open as the move across his back and Yibo’s other arm moves around to the front to pull Xiao Zhan back against him, his naked body folding into Yibo’s chest. 

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to not want it.” Yibo’s voice is husky in his ear, those lips and the breath of his voice making his stomach muscles clench tight.

Yibo is so earnest that he wants to give those words back too. But it feels inadequate. As articulate as he could be otherwise, when he really needs it, words simply fail him.

And so he turns around. Offers Yibo his eyes. He thinks they will show what he wants even if the best words fall short. 

“Close your pretty eyes.” Yibo says softly, moving in to press his lips into his collarbone.

“Why?” he asks even as his neck arches back to give Yibo room.

It’s all the permission Yibo needs to pull off the apron fully.

“Your eyes…” Yibo says, pulling him back in. “Make me weak. I mean that literally. Shaking knees. Butterflies in my stomach.”

Xiao Zhan’s arms go around Yibo’s neck to pull him in. When Yibo’s lips are once again at his neck, now running along the arch there, breath tingling and tongue teasing, he asks, “You always have such a sweet tongue?” 

“You know that’s not true. Must have been saving it all for you.” 

He smiles and Yibo can feel the smile, pulling back to look. 

“Are you making fun of me?” the pout. It’s back. This time it doesn’t make Xiao Zhan smile. It makes him drag Yibo back to him, mouth open now as he kisses him. There’s a sound of surprise and then a moan and then he is pushing up Yibo’s t-shirt and trying to get at as much skin as he can. 

“Oh fuck…” Yibo whispers at the first touch of his fingers on the naked skin of his belly and it’s so hard there that Xiao Zhan has to pull back to look.

“Holy…” he says as he takes in Yibo’s body. It’s no longer the scrawny one of the kid he first met way back at that bonfire. This is…

“They wanted me to pack up when we shot the drama.” Yibo looks down proudly at all six of them and Xiao Zhan counts them one by one just for the sake of it. 

“The drama was last summer.” He reminds Yibo.

“I kept it. Thought it would come in handy if I ever got the opportunity to seduce you.” He grins.

“Is it working?” Yibo asks, just to be a gremlin.

But Yibo’s earlier words strike him just then and Xiao Zhan pulls his hand back, scoffing, “Please, I liked you way before these.”

When he realizes what he had admitted, he walks away, to the sink at the kitchen to wash his hands off. They are covered in a sandy orange, smudges of it are all over Yibo’s six-pack.

While the water is still running, Yibo hugs him from behind, squeezing tight around his waist. “Since when?” 

Xiao Zhan doesn’t answer.

“Since when?” Yibo asks again, although this time his voice is different, less sexy and more sweet, his hold softer. 

“I don’t want to say.” Xiao Zhan answers truthfully.

“Why? Is it so bad to admit that you like me?”

“Not bad.” He says, turning around. “Just… a lot.”

Yibo tilts his head. 

Xiao Zhan pulls back and walks over to the drawer near his bed. From inside, he grabs a wooden box with a hidden lock that had been a gift Ji Li brought back for him after a visit to Rajasthan. 

He unlocks it and gives it to Yibo. 

Yibo looks at him, puzzled, before he opens the box. There is a folded-up piece of paper on top, looking like a ripped-out magazine page. He opens it to find a picture of himself. 

“My ad.” He says in surprise.

“I found it in the library, right next to a study room that I had been using.”

Yibo holds the page and stares at it for a long moment before he says, “I saw you that day. Inside the study room. With Yizhou. I was bringing this to show you. Your work had gotten me the ad. I wanted to give you a copy.”

“You didn’t.” Xiao Zhan says now.

“I didn’t. I think I realized that day that I had wished for the stars, maybe. Without realizing that’s what I wanted. I felt a little foolish afterwards.”

Xiao Zhan is quiet and when Yibo looks up, his expression is unreadable. 

Yibo looks back in the box and finds the only object left there, a tube of lipstick. His memory clicked readily only because he had just looked at his own print ad for the company. “Is this the lipstick…?”

“Ziyi’s Russian Red.” Xiao Zhan says, nodding.

Yibo’s eyes are wide when he opens the tube and rolls out the red bullet.

“You weren’t wishing for the stars after all.” Xiao Zhan says quietly.

Yibo looks at the tube a lot longer than the ad and then rolls it back down and puts it back in the box.

When he looks at Xiao Zhan next, his gaze is all want and need.

It’s so strong that he stands there quietly, just looking.

Xiao Zhan stares back, standing by the bed, not moving.

“Can I touch you again?” Yibo asks.

Xiao Zhan closes his eyes and sinks down onto the bed.

“Is that all?” he asks, pressing his heels into his eyes.

Yibo is by him in the next instant, pulling his hands off. “I’m afraid to ask for more. I’m fine with whatever you’ll let me.”

Xiao Zhan emits a growl at that and pulls Yibo down onto the bed with him, grabbing his hands and pinning them above his head. “Your words make me crazy, Yibo. Everything you say, I remember for days, months, hell years. Until they are on so much playback in my head that I can’t fuck anyone else in peace. Haven’t been for years. So, I just gave up trying.” 

“Like what?” Yibo asks breathlessly, his eyes so soft they are just going to kill him.

But he makes himself focus. The one he likes the most needs no special recollection because he has thought of it literally a million times.

 _“I like you. You’re one of the best people I have met in my life. You’re so talented and smart and funny and sweet. It’s not so bad to want you to like me, is it_?” 

“But that’s true.” Yibo says matter-of-factly and Xiao Zhan groans and buries his head in Yibo’s neck.

“Yes baby, you say the sweetest things in the most unassuming way that it sears itself like iron into my brain. Until I can’t unhear it, unthink it, unplay it. Until it humbles me so much that I’m adored to this degree – wholly undeservedly – by the purest thing I’ve ever met in my life. How did I even stand a chance of getting over liking you? But you have that effect on so many people, not just me. Especially Haikuan. He adored you to pieces. I really did want both of you to be happy. It was just easier to not be around you so much though, that was all.”

“Is that why…?” Yibo starts, but he doesn’t complete it, as presumptuous as it sounds.

“A big part of why I wanted to move out was you, yea. I still couldn’t date anyone, but at least I was no longer this miserable jealous asshole who kept giving you an attitude.”

“I would have taken you any which way I could.” Yibo says, although he closes his eyes almost immediately afterwards. “I didn’t really realize how much I liked you until you left. That whole last year when you weren’t there, it was weird. I was weird. And Kuan ge knew that I was being weird. But I didn’t know how to fix it. I missed you so much.”

The guilt is so strong in that moment, especially because of the pleasure those words give him. 

“And when I saw you again at that coffee house and you sort of pretended that you didn’t see me…”

“I didn’t.” he counters automatically.

“Bullshit!” Yibo smiles. “I can sense you if you are within a mile radius around me, you think I wouldn’t know that you saw me?”

Xiao Zhan decides to not contest that one.

“I thought for sure you would ask me to go back. But then asked me to come in. Happiest day of my life.”

“Stop…” he says, biting down a smile.

“Can’t you feel it when I’m happy? I’m the happiest around you. You must feel it. In fact, it’s probably a bit too much, how I’m always emotionally leaking out all over you.”

“Who taught you to talk this way?” he asks as he grabs Yibo close, pressing his lips under that ear, feeling it shiver.

“I always talk this way.” Yibo answers. 

“Help us all…” Xiao Zhan whispers, pressing another kiss below the first one.

“Just to you though. To hide things from you takes a lot more energy than telling you the truth.”

“Any other truths you want to decimate me with?”

Yibo thinks of that for a moment and then says, “I really want to be inside you, but I’m okay with you…”

Xiao Zhan covers his mouth before he finishes.

“Dear Lord, you’ll kill me before you get inside.”

There is a pause as Yibo’s eyes widen and he pulls Xiao Zhan’s hand off from his mouth.

“I… You’re okay with that? Is that… are you… I mean…”

“I enjoy bottom more than top, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.”

Yibo nodded.

“Haikuan is a top.” The thought strikes him just then, and before he can reel it back, it’s out.

“Yes, he is.” Yibo says. And then nothing more. And Xiao Zhan could kiss him in that moment for that. For not denigrating those memories in any other way.

“Have you… ever been a top?” he asks. He is unaware really of Yibo’s sexual history aside its beginning. 

The very beginning. The memory of Yibo’s first time appears in his mind and he forcefully pushes it away.

“There was someone a few months after Kuan ge and I ended. That’s when I figured out…” he peters off again.

“Ah.” 

There is a short silence before Yibo speaks again. “Uh… Zhan ge… Don’t take this the wrong way.”

Xiao Zhan narrows his eyes.

“I mean, don’t take this as bragging. I wouldn’t’ brag about something like this. Actually I’m not sure. Maybe I would. But I wouldn’t do it with you.”

“This is a long preamble.” He says.

“Yes.” Yibo agrees automatically. “I mean, yes, I…” he stops then, abruptly, and looks away, his face coloring a deep pink.

“What? I feel like I just witnessed an entire thought experiment and its conclusion on your face without knowing what it was about.”

“Never mind.” Yibo says.

“Tell me.” He asks.

“No really. It actually has no relevance, it turns out.” 

He moves his hips a bit and there’s an immediate groan from Yibo.

“Tell me.” He urges.

Yibo closes his eyes and says, “I was going to tell you that I’m a bit bigger than regular, but then…I remembered…” he peters off without saying the rest.

“You remembered?” 

“That you dated Yizhou.” Yibo gets it out in a rush, keeping his eyes tightly shut.

He laughs. It’s hilarious, so he laughs some more. But also true. No matter how big Yibo thinks he is, it will be no match for Yizhou.

But it’s made him curious. Six-pack notwithstanding, Yibo is still on the lanky side. Not that lanky guys can’t be hung, but…

He brings one hand down and feels it over the top of Yibo’s sweatpants.

“Fuck Zhan ge. Warn a dude.”

“Sorry sorry…” he pulls his hand back, although he is smiling now as he catches Yibo’s expression. 

“It’s been a while though.” He warns Yibo.

“How long?” 

He has to think about that. His last was... The junior with whom he had sex that one time and decided that no one else deserved to be with him if his brain insisted on thinking of only Yibo during sex. And otherwise too. But especially during sex.

“Since just before I moved here.” He answers.

“Fuck!” Yibo says, sitting up. “Are you kidding?”

He seems personally affronted for Xiao Zhan, which makes Xiao Zhan smile as he gets off of Yibo to move to the side.

“You haven’t taken advantage of having a place to yourself? What a waste Zhan ge!”

“You weren’t around.” He says as he reaches over to open the bedside drawer to return the box and pull out the bottle. The bottle that has been his friend for almost two years.

Before he could turn back though, Yibo is on him, spooning him from behind while bringing his chin back to take his mouth in an almost bruising kiss.

And now Xiao Zhan can feel how hard Yibo is against his hip. Hard and long. It’s all he can do to not moan out loud. And then he does when Yibo’s hand is inside his pants, hot and firm around his dick. 

“Fuck…” his hips almost buck off the bed and Yibo is in his ear whispering, “I’m going to fuck you so good, it’ll make up for all of the last two years.”

He thinks he wants to say something, but Yibo’s hands are so large and so good that he literally cannot speak.

The bottle almost falls from his hand, but catches it. He needs it. He needs it now. He opens it and asks Yibo to pull off his pants and underwear entirely and then he is fingering himself open while Yibo pumps his cock up and down.

He looks up at Yibo and fuck if Yibo doesn’t look…. He thinks maybe he could come just from how needy Yibo looks. Eyes hooded, lips full and open, his jaw working as he says, “Fuck, I’m so fucking hard, I want to scream.”

Xiao Zhan looks down and sees that Yibo’s pants are off too and then, it’s just a hot hard dick against his thigh. Thick. Fuck, it’s thick. It’s thick like nothing else on Yibo’s body. 

He pulls Yibo’s hand off his dick and exhales like he has run a marathon as he lays back down. Then he holds Yibo’s eyes as he works himself open, wanting Yibo to see every little expression of pleasure that crosses his face because he wants to be dicked down so bad.

Yibo growls and is on him the next moment, pressing down into him, whispering in his ear, “Please tell me I can put it in now before I explode.”

It’s a level of desperation that he craves in sex, especially when he is taking it rather than giving it, and he raises his legs to wrap them around Yibo’s hips. 

Yibo is slow and deliberate for all that he is practically melting from need, his eyes scrunched up tightly and beads of sweat forming along the narrow strip of hairline that he can see along his forehead.

When he bottoms out, Yibo falls on top of him, murmuring, “I think I died. Life was pleasant enough. But death definitely took the cake.”

Xiao Zhan grins into his neck as he wraps his arms around his shoulder and just hold him. It feels like he holds him for ages.

“You ready to move?” he asks eventually.

He thinks Yibo nods. Or maybe he is sleeping. Yibo’s voice is husky when he asks, sincerely, “I love it in here. Can I stay awhile?” 

It makes Xiao Zhan feel some kind of way and he draws his legs in tighter as he whispers, right into Yibo’s ear as if it would slide in and fill him up from the inside, “I love you.”

For a moment, there is nothing. Yibo is quiet. But Xiao Zhan is holding him so close that he can feel it, the pulse at his neck. It’s fluttering so helplessly that he whispers again, “I love you so very much.”

Yibo is so hard inside him and the fullness is so incredible that Xiao Zhan’s hips move automatically, seeking.

Yibo lifts his head to look at him, his eyes as hot as his dick feels, and he kisses him as he starts to move, slowly at first, a long push and pull, and ending with hard quick thrusts that has Xiao Zhan grabbing onto the wrought iron bars of the headboard at his back. 

There is enough sweat between them at the end to solve a small nation state’s water crisis, but they revel in it, sticky and wet and stuck together in a way time and circumstances hadn’t allowed before.

Just when he thinks he has enough energy to make it to the shower, Yibo moves up behind him, curving around him, and whispers in his ear, “I love you too. So very much.”

And he thinks that the shower can wait. 

xxxxxx


End file.
